Harvick in the groove up high at Michigan

Harvick in the groove up high at Michigan

By Jim Pedley

(June 16, 2011)

If you tune in late to Sunday's Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 and want to find out where Kevin Harvick is, look up. Up, that is, on the banking at Michigan International Speedway.

 Because it is up there where Harvick finally solved big, smooth, wide, old MIS last summer.

 As his team owner, Richard Childress, said of staying high on the banking at MIS after Harvick won the Carfax 400 last August, "Kevin, he's figured out how to make this thing work in the (high) groove."

 Prior to that victory last year, Harvick was a searcher when it came to Michigan . He had gone winless in 19 starts at the 2-mile oval in his Sprint Cup career. He had just six top-10 finishes and his average finish was 15.4.

 And he was not alone on the Richard Childress Racing team as a searcher at MIS, as no RCR driver had won a Cup race there since 1990 when Dale Earnhardt did it.

 But then came the Carfax event last year and it all changed. Harvick led five times for 60 laps and he got the victory when—with 11 laps to go—he passed Denny Hamlin on the high side.

 "Well," Harvick said afterward of opting for the top groove at MIS, "it's just a lot of years of getting beat by people running up there to be honest with you."

 The frustration of getting beat by those people sent Harvick to the tape library.

 "I never really could figure it out," Harvick said. "… I went home and watched some tapes of Dale (Earnhardt) Jr., to be honest with you, some of his previous races (at MIS), because he always seemed to have a good handle on running the top groove."

 Harvick says he learned plenty from the tapes.

 "It was just more of a rhythm thing and some things that I needed to change in my approach to run up there. For us, I think the biggest change was not only the racecars being good, but just the approach to where we ran on the racetrack during the race and making that commitment."

 Harvick clinched a berth in the 2010 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup with his victory at MIS last August.

 He arrives at the track in the Irish Hills country of Michigan this weekend with a Chase berth already, probably, stashed away. He is fourth in points and, perhaps more significantly, he already has three victories in a season in which those likely will put him into the Chase as one of two wild-card drivers should he collapse in the points standings.

 But don't think for a moment that Harvick and his RCR team would not like to build on his already impressive numbers. For reasons of pride, for reasons of momentum and for  just plain peace of mind, they want more.

 And getting a fourth victory—or at least a great finish to pad his points total—this weekend looks to be more than just possible.

 "It is a fun racetrack to race on," he said. "You have got to have good fuel mileage. You have to have a good handling car. You have to have the whole package. If you are having a good day, it's not very hard anywhere to drive a good handling racecar around and tell your guys what it needs and everybody is in a good mood."

 And for Harvick, the "anywhere" likely will be near the outside walls on Sunday afternoon.